Jewel Tones: Five Faith's That Never Were
by thenyxie
Summary: A world where Angelus was never caught and the sun remains dark... A world where Faith never came to Sunnydale after the death of her Watcher... A world where apocalypse comes in the form of a plague. Five worlds, five tales of Faith's that never were.
1. Jewel Tones 1: Diamond

JEWEL TONES – DIAMOND  
(Five Faiths That Never Were, Part 1)  
  
  
She still loves the hunt. Loves the way bruises flower beneath the skin in a rainbow of pain and color. She relishes the sound of weapons sliding into flesh, puncturing, piercing, and parting the way with a shower of warm crimson or dark ash. Most of all, perhaps, she loves the bloom of pain beneath her own skin; fireworks, thin copper wire, explosions of agony—any shade across the spectrum will do. She adores them all. They make her hiss, they make her bleed and writhe. When she fights and arcs like a sailfish, defiant beneath the moonlight, that's when she can feel the beat of her heart, the song in her blood.  
  
That's how she knows she's still alive.  
  
If once her heart were a fire, it is a cinder now, blackened ash curled round the edges of a hollow place that whispers with ghosts and speaks of fate. Buffy, Xander, Angel, they all haunt the hallways of her mind now, bitter memories tainted with the distance of time. They cannot touch her anymore, their golden smiles and kind hands. She is the last of them, for ten years running, and she is the best.  
  
Her body is whip thin with muscle, face gaunt and shadowed with horrors of the past that only hint at the reality of what she has faced. Slayer hands still move and strike, Slayer legs still run and kick. A touch slower than she used to be, but still the most effective killing machine the Council has ever witnessed.  
  
Almost thirty, and her time is almost up. She prays for it to end soon.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Wesley had thought he'd known better, had thought that with her help they could catch Angelus and turn him back into Angel. Wesley had been wrong. Now they are all dead and only she and Angelus remain; two eternal adversaries caught in a never-ending hunt. Had Wesley known the madness they would unleash upon the world when they brought Angelus out? Had they imagined this world, where the sun never shines and vampires and beasts rule the earth like the dinosaurs before them?  
  
Fools.  
  
But she had been just as much a fool. She had followed Wesley's plan, and when that didn't work she'd made one of her own. Nothing had worked. Nothing had even seemed to make a dent. It had taken her days to escape Angelus' hold, and in that time she'd watched as he'd killed them, every last one. He'd made sure that she'd watched, had done it especially for her entertainment, in fact. And he hadn't just killed them, oh no. That would have been mercy. He had toyed with them, cut into them just a little at a time, made them suffer and cry and beg before they finally died.  
  
Angelus loves the beauty of blood and bruises, too.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Feet pound against the dew-slick grass and the stake in her hand feels good, ragged splinters digging deep into flesh. Pain has become the definition of her world. It no longer hurts her from the inside, oh no. She walled away her dreams and heartaches years ago, scattering them like dust into a tiny box and dumping them into the deepest well she could find. In her mind there are only icebergs, and her heart is a frozen diamond of rivers, life stilled forever by the cold of her soul. But the stinging pain in her hand, the stitch in her side, these things are vivid and alive with color. They have texture and significance. And soon they will shape a world where she is, for just an instant, again a girl with purpose in her life. For just that split-second, they will give her meaning.  
  
There was a time when she might've questioned if that was enough. Now she simply knows that it's all she's got.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The ones he'd turned… she'd had to see to them herself. Cordelia, Buffy, Dawn. Always the women. Her own hand had made each killing strike, and as the light went out forever in each of their eyes, her own light had died in turn until there was nothing left.  
  
Her world had narrowed then to the tiniest of points, beginning a long, fixed course that would certainly lead her to the end of her life.   
  
Angelus is the only fuel that feeds this killing machine.  
  
And he is close now, very close.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Her feet lead her to the entrance of an abandoned warehouse, and there she hesitates.  
  
His voice calls to her mockingly from the darkness within, floating on the night air like a deadly caress. Will she play for him tonight? Will she bleed for him tonight?   
  
_"Faithy."  
_  
He is the only one who's ever called her that, and she longs to cut his tongue from his throat for daring it.   
  
Another moment, and she glances up at the moon with only a passing thought for if she will ever see it again. Then she lifts her feet and passes from beneath its gaze.  
  
Inside the warehouse, nothing moves. The shadows are deep and even with Slayer eyes she can hardly make out the contour of the room she stands in. She waits, lets her eyes adjust to the filtered moonlight, then moves on.  
  
"Should've given up this game years ago, Faithy," his voice calls mockingly from the darkness. Close or far, she can't tell, the way it echoes. "You're not gettin' any younger, you know."  
  
She doesn't speak. She gave up playing these games long ago. Her face still bears the scar from one of their oldest encounters, and she has never forgotten the carelessness that led her to it. Besides, she knows how much it maddens him when his prey won't play along with his little head games.  
  
She moves deeper within, stepping up to an old industrial ladder. Somehow, she senses that he will be above. It would be just like him, to climb among the eaves and watch over his prey as they grow increasingly nervous, laughing to himself as they blunder about in the dark. She knows him. Far too well, sometimes.  
  
She climbs the ladder, and now she can feel it; her heart beginning to speed up a little, blood like fire pumping through her veins in slow resolution.   
  
Somehow she knows that he will be up there, waiting for her. Wanting to grab her when she's most vulnerable. She tucks her stake as she nears the top, and grabs the rails on either side of the ladder. With one quick motion she pulls her legs up, spins herself out and up, pushing off with her hands. As she reaches the apex of her flip, her feet connect with something solid, and she hears a gratifying grunt of pain as Angelus falls back. Her motion carries her through and she lands on her feet, upright on the next level. But just barely. For a second she teeters and nearly falls backward anyway, but then she regains her equilibrium and steadies, grabbing the stake from the small of her back and advancing away from the one story drop.  
  
"Nice move," Angelus says, rising and dusting himself off. "Didn't think you still had a flip like that in you. But then, you always were full of surprises, weren't you?"  
  
She still doesn't speak, eyes fixated on the outline of his silhouette. Limned and backlit in moonlight as he is, he would make an impressive picture for anyone who chanced to see him. For Faith, it simply makes him an easier target.  
  
He laughs when she doesn't respond, and his laughter is still bone-chilling. A finger of ice runs down her spine and the hairs on the back of her neck prick up in response. It's her body's natural response to a sound that is the complete lack of sanity, but it doesn't reach any deeper than her skin. After all, she's been hearing that laughter in her head for the last ten years. It's the chuckle of a madman, a cold-blooded killer, and if she lives forever she doesn't think she could ever forget what it sounds like.  
  
"Come on, Faithy. I'm doing everything I can to make this easy for you, but you've got to show me a _little effort, here."  
  
She lunges, and he dodges out of the moonlight, dust puffing up in his wake. She turns, eyes roving the darkness, seeking him.  
  
He titters again from the shadows. "Yep. You're getting slow. I almost hate to have to put you out of your misery," he says with a sigh. Then his voice darkens with something that sounds like knowledge. "But then again, that is why you came here, isn't it?"  
  
"I came here to kill you," she says at last, and her voice is rough with years of little use. It sounds less like scotch and cigarettes than time and rusty nails.  
  
"Oh come on, Faithy. What's it been? A decade since you got out of jail? How many fights? How many scars? How many nights of wondering if this one's gonna be your last? Aren't you tired of it yet?"  
  
She hesitates, the words slipping through her mental armor with more ease than she would have believed. She can almost sense him edge forward eagerly as he sees the hole in her defenses—and suddenly she realizes how to use it to her advantage.  
  
"Tell me the truth, Faithy. Aren't you ready for me to do what I should've done to you ten years ago?"  
  
She slowly lets her arm fall, stake resting against her hip, confidence slipping from her posture.  
  
And he moves closer, ever closer. "See, it's easy, isn't it? Giving in to what you want? That's the one thing you were always good at before, Faithy. Then you had to go and get all __heroic. And you were never any good at that."  
  
He inches closer and she bows her head, watching him from beneath the curtain of her hair.  
  
"You should have let me kill you then, but that's okay. We'll take care of that right now, won't we?"  
  
He lunges at her from the darkness, inhumanly strong hands gripping her arms and pinning them at her sides. And she doesn't move, doesn't fight, only looks up at him, and grins.  
  
"Guess we will."  
  
His fangs plunge into her throat like piercing fire and she never knew that it would feel like this, this slow draining of life, everything seeping away around the edges.  
  
The stake falls from her hand and clatters to the floor, a lost, empty sound.  
  
Angelus feeds, and as the world loses sharp edges and hard angles, she smiles, the moonlight glimmering like diamonds in her eyes.   
  
Pushing forward with all the strength in her legs, she shoves him into the splintered timber that juts from a rotten support beam, spearing him like a fish. The wood thrusts through her right shoulder and she grunts with the sudden pain of it, but she doesn't close her eyes.   
  
This. Yes, this is the moment she's lived for for the last ten years, and she wouldn't miss it for the world.  
  
His eyes are wide with shock as he pulls back, the trickster still astonished that the final trick has been played on him. A thin line of blood runs from the corner of his mouth, a glistening ruby trail that distorts in a grimace.  
  
"You bi--" he begins, and then his lips darken, turning black as night. Instantly, hairline fractures run through them and break apart as he disintegrates. A single drop of blood shimmers in the air after he vanishes, and it takes an eternity to fall, making a perfect circle of crimson as it strikes her breast.  
  
All that's left of him, and it belongs to her.  
  
There isn't much blood left to seep from her shoulder, and the pain is a distant, echoing feeling that fades down the dim hallway of consciousness. Darkness comes like the end of the world, and she knows it is for the final time. She goes willingly into its embrace, and when it claims her, there is no regret for the past, no thought for heaven or friends perhaps seen again. She feels nothing but release.   
  
Dark eyes glitter like hard candy, empty doors beneath cold moonlight, and there is no smile on her face even now. Her head falls against her breast and she breathes her last, hard lines and hard truths of the world left behind.  
  
And somewhere across the ocean, a new Slayer is called.  
  
_


	2. Jewel Tones 2: Ruby

JEWEL TONES – RUBY  
(Five Faiths That Never Were, Part 2)  
  
  
The blood still tastes sweet.  
  
There's a fire in her eyes that I cannot touch; a living thing that strains and scratches just beneath the skin, fighting like an animal to rage free. Ruby red nails dig into flesh, drawing deep lines and hissing pleasure. Lips swollen with desperate kisses, she pleads with desire and fear, for a moment entirely mine. She is an aching expanse of skin, smooth and unmarked, begging to be tasted and touched and bruised, and God I want her so bad I feel like I'm about to slide right out of my skin. Has it ever been like this? Fevered kisses against hip and throat and breast. She tastes of salt, a wild ocean that threatens to devour me, and I am lost in her. Lost…  
  
I still remember the first night I saw her, dancing like temptation, wreathed in club smoke and sheathed in vinyl. Two-hundred and forty years and I'd never seen anything like her. She was extraordinary; a twisting flame in the darkness of my sad, pitiful world. Dark hair, dark eyes, no dulcet tones to her voice—she was nothing like the pale, blond pearls strung through my haunted past. And yet I wanted her. Wanted her like the desert wants the rain. I reached for her like the trees reach for the sky.  
  
I felt like a younger man then.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
_September 2001, __Los Angeles__  
  
It was Friday night, and the Harlton was open for business.  
  
In its heyday, this had been one of the top notch clubs in town, its doors always open, rooms always full. Angel could remember the days when this place had practically overflowed with men in gray suits and bowler hats flashing greenbacks and smiles like there was no tomorrow. But time had crept in like a cancer since the 1930's and all the Harlton's color and prestige had bled away with it. There was still a trace of its former glory in the high sweeping arches of the room, and in the sheer size of the stage with its thick, velvet curtains, but the rest was buried so far beneath the years of dirt and abuse that a faint echo was all that remained. Time's accomplice in this theft of stature had been poverty, and it was poverty that was also responsible for the lack of patrons to frequent the club in recent years. Still, those who had come tonight were drinking with wild abandon, talking loudly and smoking cigarettes, conversations occasionally punctuated by raucous laughter.  
  
Centuries passed, and the faces and locations changed, but places like this never did. They were always the same on the inside, and Angel supposed they always would be. And he might have found reassurance in that thought if he'd been at all comfortable in public places filled with people.  
  
Too many bodies, too much blood. It was too distracting, and occasionally, though he would never admit it to anyone else, tempting. Better to stay away. Safer that way.  
  
But not tonight.  
  
Angel sighed and took a seat at one of the many empty tables. At length, the overhead lights dimmed and the jukebox shut off. Conversations dulled to a whisper, then died as the crowd hushed in anticipation. This was what they had come for, after all. In the near darkness, smoke curled around shadowy forms in pale blue wreaths, weaving in and out between them like the faint strains of the music that were beginning to rise.  
  
On the stage, deep red velvet curtains were parted by a three inch stiletto heel. It hesitated there, as if teasing, then slid slowly through to reveal a shapely leg encased in black vinyl, and ended with a breathtaking expanse of tanned thigh. Dark eyes ringed in smudged black kohl peered out from between the part, and then an arm glided through the curtain, the music rose, and the dancer spun out onto the stage with a graceful whisper of velvet over skin.  
  
Her body was like a panther's, predatory grace and deadly beauty showcased in every lithe muscle. Lights shone down on her in rainbow hues of scarlet, cobalt, emerald, and violet, each of their sources reflected in the shiny black vinyl she had poured her body into; tiny pinpricks of light that glimmered like the fire inside her. Her skin looked soft, smooth despite the hard edges of her smile, and she was slick with sweat and glitter that set off showers of kaleidoscope color every time she moved. She glittered and gleamed, flared and flashed; the feathered shimmer of a dark peacock's plumage. And yet for all that she shone, nothing burned as bright as the fire in her eyes. It was a living thing, an inferno seconds from raging out of control and taking the whole world with it. In each movement of her arms there was a savage beauty, in every sway of her hips there was an aura of power. No matter that these men who smelled of sweat and cigarettes and violence stared at her as if she was prey; she was in control, and she knew it.  
  
The sultry voice of a woman began to sing from the speakers and the dancer weaved like a cobra to the pole at the forefront of the stage. Wrapping vinyl clad fingers around it, she swung out in a slow arc and threw back her head, dark hair trailing behind her in a cascade of violet light.  
  
_Hanging by threads of palest silver,   
I could have stayed that way forever.   
Bad blood and ghosts wrapped tight around me,   
Nothing could ever seem to touch me._  
  
From his table at the back of the room, Angel watched her move with trademark stoicism, his face betraying nothing of what he felt. His glass of scotch perhaps spoke better for him, sitting as it was, untouched and forgotten, ice slowly melting. The people that moved and whispered around him had ceased to matter—indeed, had ceased to _exist_ for the moment—and it might well have been the two of them alone in that smoky, light-streaked room for all the attention he paid.  
  
Whatever he'd been expecting, it hadn't been this.  
  
Guitar with a slow fire to match the show she was putting on kicked in, carrying her in a spin across the stage, and remotely, he registered that she was as gone as he was, so lost in her dance, so lost in the song that everyone else in the room had ceased to exist.  
  
_A stroke of luck or a gift from God?__   
The hand of fate or devil's claws?   
From below or saints above?   
You came to me.   
  
_The words faded out for Angel; heard, felt, but no longer making sense in his brain. He was suddenly glad that he wasn't a younger man, because if it weren't for the years of practice he'd had at keeping his face carefully emotionless, his jaw would have dropped at the sight of what she was doing onstage. The floor, the pole, the air—there was nothing she didn't have smoldering chemistry with and there was nothing that she didn't use it like a weapon against, nothing that she didn't tease and caress with every inch of her skin.  
  
He'd never seen anything like her. And after two-hundred and forty some odd years, that was saying something.  
  
By the time she finished the dance every inch of her lovely skin stood bare, and streaked with sweat and glitter like stardust, her body was a temple that Angel would have gladly lain at her feet to worship.  
  
This was not good.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The cool, California night breeze caressed Angel's face and he took a deep, unnecessary breath, holding it for an instant and closing his eyes before letting go. Such a human thing to do, but it never failed to bring him focus. He felt far more like his usual self than he had cooped up inside the smoky confusion of the club. The lights, the heat, the noise, it all wore on him. Secluded in the safety of the shadows again, the memory of the club and the girl beneath the lights grew hazy, distant, returning to its proper place in his perspective. Of course he'd been overwhelmed; so had every other man in the room. But it was part of the routine, part of the act, all in a days work. She'd better be good at it. It was how she made her living, after all.  
  
The back door to the club banged open and she stepped out into the alley way, pausing to light a cigarette.  
  
She was dressed in jeans and a tank top now, but she was, Angel discovered, no less spectacular than she'd been on stage. The slow, heavy grace of a jungle cat still flowed through her limbs, just as evident in denim as it had been in vinyl.  
  
Oh _shit_, was he ever in trouble.  
  
As she turned and began to move down the alley away from him, he spurred himself from the shadows, stepping out and calling after her.  
  
"Faith."  
  
She spun on him like lightning, almost before the word was finished leaving his mouth. No fear in her at all now, that was good. But for a second, when she'd first turned, he thought he'd seen _some_thing…  
  
"Maybe," she answered with a belligerent shrug. "Depends on who's asking."  
  
"I'm Angel," he said, suddenly feeling stupid, not quite knowing how to begin. Of course before he'd gotten here he'd had a whole __speech prepared, but—  
  
"Well, _Angel_," she repeated with mocking emphasis. "Now that we've got the 'me Tarzan you Jane' portion of this little exchange out of the way, how about you tell me what the hell you want?"   
  
Without waiting for an answer, she tilted her head at him, her expression moving mercurially from suspicious to appraising in a way that immediately put him on his guard. She smiled just a little, and it was like looking into the mouth of a shark. Prepared? Had he thought he'd been prepared?  
  
"No, wait," she said, taking a step or two toward him, hips swaying provocatively. "Let me guess. You caught the show inside and thought maybe you'd score a little encore action?"  
  
"What?" He was genuinely perplexed. "Oh, no."  
  
She took another step toward him and smiled. Her lips were painted like dark plums and looked like they'd taste just as sweet though they'd be sticky with sin.   
  
"Good. Because the only way I do vamps--" the smile faded as she turned and spun at him "—is with wood."  
  
He reached out, and with the ease of plucking fruit from a vine he grabbed her wrist, stopping the stake a bare centimeter from his chest. "You know, you telegraphed that one about thirty seconds back. You might want to work on your moves a little more, _Slayer_." And yes, good. He was talking tough, talking the talk, pretending that her nearness wasn't affecting him and he wasn't overwhelmed by the scent of sweat and musk that emanated from her, oh no, not at all.  
  
The heady rush of her scent faded as her eyes widened, panic entering them like an animal who finds itself caught in a trap. She yanked her arm desperately, trying to get away from him, breath coming in short pants now as her heartbeat sped up to match her expression of fear.  
  
"Who sent you?" she demanded, still pulling defiantly at his grip. Dark hair spilled into her face and hung in thick, sweaty strands, and all he could do was marvel at how much the savage look on her face enhanced her beauty. "Was it Kakistos?" Her voice trembled on the name and seemed to lend her violent strength as she struck out at him with her other fist.  
  
He caught that one, too, and held her there, not pushing forward, not forcing her, eyes steady as he measured her. Had he thought she was merely powerful inside the club? If so, he had underestimated her. She was more than powerful; she was dangerous.  
  
"Saw that one coming a mile away, too. You know, you really ought to think about--"  
  
His sentence cut off abruptly as her knee came up and met with his crotch in realms of exquisite pain.  
  
"Okay," he wheezed, letting her go and sinking back. "Didn't see that one coming."  
  
But she was already gone, booted feet pounding against the asphalt as she raced off into the night.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
It took him a few minutes to recover, and in the time that he spent hunched over holding himself, he got a good look at the smoldering butt of the cigarette she'd dropped. Marlboro, of course, he thought, smirk snaking onto his face even through the pain. What else?  
  
He followed at a leisurely pace, trusting his senses to lead him. He couldn't have wiped her scent from his mind if he'd tried, and its trail was sweet, thick as honey on the air.  
  
The building it led him to was ramshackle, decrepit. It, like the Harlton, had seen better days in the 1930's. Inside, bums and junkies were scattered all over the hallway like bowling pins in a hastily abandoned lane, their skin as gray and shabby as the walls they leaned against. He stepped carefully through the obstacle course of splayed limbs, doing his best to ignore their melodic murmurs, and made his way up the stairs.  
  
At the end of the uppermost hall, the number six hung on its side at a crazy angle that was more like a nine, and he paused before the door, hesitating in a brief moment of sanity. A girl like this, a place like this… she was definitely the Slayer, her moves had more than proven that, despite his jibes. But why was she _here_? And what would she do to him if she found out he knew where she lived?  
  
Only one way to find out.  
  
He raised his hand and knocked.  
  
The door swung away from Angel in a rush of movement—there was a hand, a stake, and a moment that might have been a heartbeat where he ducked and threw himself backward.  
  
She stood in the doorway, outlined by dirty yellow light, stake raised, chest heaving with rage and indignation.  
  
"What the fuck are you doing here?"  
  
He leaned against the far wall of the hallway and raised his hands—not high enough that he'd be caught unprepared if she decided to press her luck and come at him, but high enough that he figured she'd get the message.  
  
"I'm not here to hurt you. I—I didn't mean to scare you," he added, half-apologizing.  
  
"What makes you think you did?" she challenged, stake rising higher.  
  
"Well, I did have to chase you."  
  
"Yeah? Well being a vampire who leaps out of the shadows at a Slayer? Not your best choice for making bosom buddies." The sarcasm in her voice could have cut through stone. "Who the fuck are you, and who sent you here, __Angel?"  
  
"No one sent me." He hesitated, considered. "Well, a friend of mine had a vision, actually, but she didn't really _send_ me."  
  
"Really?" She arched disbelieving brows at him as she leaned an elbow against the doorway, not quite crossing the boundary. "So this friend. She had a vision of me killing you? Is that it? 'Cause we could get it done real quick." Her voice practically caressed him with bloodlust.  
  
"Actually, she had a vision of _you_ getting killed. I came to help."  
  
Her brows rose another incredulous centimeter. "Really? Last I checked? Vampires: not much on the knight in shining armor bit."  
  
"I'm not a knight."  
  
"No, you're an _Angel_," she quipped, rolling her eyes.  
  
He grimaced, then nodded his head side to side, as if relenting to the idea. "In a manner of speaking."  
  
"Oh, _please_! Spare me the Anne Rice shit. Three years I've been doing this Slayer bit, and I've yet to meet a vamp who was good for more than dusting."  
  
"Have you ever met anyone who was good for more than that?" he challenged. "Because I'm starting to get the idea that my being a vampire is only half the problem." She was playing tough all right. __Too tough. Anyone who had a shell that hard was overcompensating for some serious vulnerability. It wasn't just that he was a vampire—she didn't trust _anyone_. She reminded him a lot of Kate, suddenly, and he grimaced internally at the comparison.  
  
Her posture changed, folding in on itself a little, and she seemed to edge uncomfortably against the doorway.  
  
"Look, you're in there, I'm out here. We both know I can't touch you unless you invite me in, so why don't you just hear me out?"  
  
For a moment he thought she might turn away and slam the door in his face. Then she folded her arms across her chest, stake still visible in the crook of her arm—for his benefit, he was sure—and leaned back as if settling in.  
  
"Okay, _vampire_. What's your story?"  
  
"First of all, I'm not just a vampire. I have a soul."  
  
"Oh." She nodded mockingly, as if she'd been celestially enlightened. Then she turned her head to the side, unable to hold back her derisive chuckle. "You really _are_ peddling the Anne Rice crap, aren't you?"  
  
"Are you going to listen to me, or not?" he asked harshly.  
  
Her face worked beneath the ugly fluorescents of the hallway, and at last she nodded. "Okay. Sure. Why not?" She shrugged and spread her arms at him in invitation.  "Hit me with your best shot, Louis."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
An hour later, she was crouched down in her doorway, elbows resting on her knees as she puzzled through what he had told her.  
  
"So you're cursed?"  
  
"Yeah, that's the short version." He sighed and sagged back against the far wall of the hallway, not able to remember the last time he had talked so much.  
  
"And your friend—the one who got these visions from the half-demon guy that died—she saw something bad happen to me?"  
  
He nodded and swallowed against the rusty taste in his throat. "She did." He paused, gathering his thoughts, and shifted against the wall. "She saw you battling against a vampire with one eye. The other eye was blind. Had an ugly scar cutting through it."  
  
"Kakistos," she whispered, her voice trembling again, and he saw a shadow of fear flutter across her face. And God, even then she was so beautiful. Did she have any idea how beautiful she was?  
  
Her dark eyes were distant, almost vacant except for utter incomprehension. "I cut him with some kind of magic blade. Blinded him in one eye." She smirked bitterly. "I left my mark on him, at least. Before I ran."  
  
"You did what you had to," Angel assured.  
  
"How do you know?" she shot back at him, rising from her crouch with eyes like burning embers. "You weren't there. You didn't see what happened. What he… did to her." Her eyes flickered away from him on this last, as if in shame.  
  
"Who?"  
  
"My Watcher," she grated. "And when he was done with her, he came for me, and all I could do was… run." She finished up with a bewildered laugh and a shrug, and he felt his something in his chest tighten with sympathy.  
  
"You know…" she said slowly, thoughtfully, eyes still not reaching to meet his, much as he willed it. "They tell you how to fight, how to kill and thrust and parry and spin, but they don't tell you how to deal with something like that. They don't tell you how to handle a situation where your Watcher is cut into itty-bitty pieces while you watch." Her eyes hardened, and tears of anger sprang to life within them. "I guess the Slayer's handbook never had to cover a situation like that."  
  
He stared at her, lost in the wake of her admission, and cursed himself for not being better at this. He searched his heart for comfort and for all the intensity that fueled them, the words he found seemed the most stupid and simple. "I'm sorry."  
  
Her eyes surged up at him, liquid with belligerent sorrow. "You know what else they don't tell you in the Slayer's handbook? How to make a living with a stake."  
  
He took a moment to process that, and tilted his head away from her, suddenly uncomfortable with the emotion between them. "So that's why you… dance?"  
  
She uttered a harsh and bitter laugh. "Dance, yeah. Why don't you call it what it really is, _Angel_? Stripping. Taking my clothes off for hungry eyes and getting money for it. You got a problem with that?"  
  
"Do you?" he asked.  
  
"No. I don't," she answered defiantly. "Never have. I knew Kakistos would chase me after what I did to him, so I faded into the background, disappeared. I've changed clubs a lot in the last few years, but I'm still alive, and I'm still scraping by." She raised her brows at him in challenge. "And that's what it's all about, isn't it?"  
  
"It doesn't have to be," he said gently. "You can walk away from this, Faith. You can come back with me and be a Slayer again. God knows we could use your help. Not to mention that you'd be fulfilling your destiny."  
  
She laughed once, hollowly. "Is that what it's about for __you? Because it's not for me. For me it's about forgetting. About getting away from all the death and the blood."  
  
"About losing yourself?"  
  
"Maybe."  
  
And now _he_ shook his head. "I know all about trying to do that, Faith. It doesn't work. Sooner or later you're going to have to face up to your destiny. And from the looks of things, it's going to be pretty soon."  
  
"Yeah, well it's easy for you," she snarled and stood on her feet, turning away. "_You're_ not alone. You've never had to know what it's like to constantly look over your shoulder and worry about who's coming for you next. Maybe the guy who stuck a twenty in your garter belt tonight? Or the bouncer by the door on your way out?" She turned on him, furious. "Who's it going to be next? The guy in the hallway stalking and sweet-talking you into morning?"   
  
"Faith, I know—"  
  
She slammed her fist into the doorframe, all glorious rage and simmering anger. "Fuck _you_! You don't know the first thing about who I am, or where I've been."  
  
He looked at her for a long moment, thought about arguing with her, and finally he nodded.   
  
"You're right. I don't."  
  
She raised her chin at him in defiance, proud to have proven her point.  
  
"But I could. If you'd let me."  
  
"You wanna get in my pants? Is that it?" She boiled over furiously.  
  
He considered that, his mind a shifting, slithering place where the footing was treacherous and unknown. "That's _not_ the reason I'm here."  
  
She stared at him for a several long seconds, chewing on her lower lip in nervous deliberation. At last she rolled her eyes and cursed beneath her breath. "Fuck!" She slammed the palm of her hand against the doorjamb. "Why do I _believe_ you?" She was still furious, frustrated with her feelings.  
  
He gave her a slow, faint smile. "Because it's the truth."  
  
She stood there, frowning and staring contemplatively at the dent she'd put in the doorframe, arms folded across her chest. Angel sat and stared at her for several long minutes in silence, and then glanced toward the window in the hall.   
  
"The sun will be up soon. I should go." He waited for her to respond, and when she didn't, he pushed off the wall, slipped his hands into the pockets of his trench coat and looked at her intently. "Listen. Be careful, okay?"  
  
She stared at the wall and said nothing.  
  
He hesitated an instant longer, wishing she would say something, anything. And when at last he had stretched the silence out so long that it screamed in protest, he lowered his head and turned to go. "Good night."  
  
"Angel." Her voice was quiet as it cut through the hall and stopped him in his tracks. Her tone was like steel but somehow uncertain, implying that the conversation they were having now was dodgy at best, and very, _very_ private. "I don't know if I'm ready to just jump back in."  
  
He turned toward her, one corner of his mouth crinkling. "It's okay. We've got time."  
  
She fidgeted a moment more, and then she nodded and tucked a lock of hair behind one ear. "Right."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
She didn't believe me then, but that was all right, because I believed enough for both of us. I was still filled with belief in the right and wrong of the world—still believed that good always triumphed over evil. I was naïve with hope and drunk with pride, and some part of me honestly believed that if I could do this, if I could just help this girl, it would put a few coins in the coffer towards buying my cosmic forgiveness. Some part of me honestly believed that I could give back to the world, and blinded by my arrogant nobility, I convinced myself that that was all I wanted.   
  
I'll always remember her like that, standing in that dingy hallway still glittering; a tarnished setting for a rough but beautiful gemstone. I know now that I loved her even then. I think some part of me knew it then, much as I tried to deny it.   
  
I wish I had known then how it was all going to end. But no one ever can.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
"It's been a week, Angel. Aren't you getting tired of hanging around here yet?" Faith asked, leaning toward him over her cup of coffee. Her eyes were still smudged with the heavy black of the make-up from her show as they teased him, but it was her mouth that held him. Her lips were the shimmering red of frosted rose petals, and Angel was mesmerized by the way they moved, the faint scent of coffee that lingered on them, painfully aware of every breath they drew. He'd gone from denial to infatuation to full-blown imagined love in the course of that one week, and all the armies of hell couldn't have pulled him from her now. He was wrapped in the web of her mystery, tied up tight in gossamer strands of wanting, spellbound by the whiskey and cigarettes caress of her voice.  
  
"There's no where else I'd rather be," he answered. So honest, so earnest. Did he sound like a fool? He didn't care.  
  
She averted her eyes, seeming uncomfortable with his intensity, and tucked a lock of hair behind one ear as she dodged his look.  
  
"Your real life must be pretty boring, huh?" she countered, and he smiled slightly. She hesitated a moment then shook her head. "You know, I just don't get you. You've been here a week, you still haven't tried to get in my pants, and you still think I'm cut out for this whole Slayer thing?"  
  
"It's your calling," he said simply, and shrugged.  
  
"And that's good enough for you, huh?" she snorted. "What about me? You ever stop for a second and think maybe this is where I belong?" she asked with a glance around the tiny, grungy diner. "This city, these people. The dirty streets and starving kids, the crime and the hatred. This is the kind of place I've always belonged. The one time I ever had a chance at anything different the person who changed my life got killed right in front of me. And you know, I'm thinking; this life? A whole lot safer, crackheads and crazy homeless people included."  
  
He swallowed and shook his head once. "No one ever believes they're destined for greatness, Faith. I'm sorry you had to go through what you went through with your Watcher, but that's not the way it always has to be. You can do great things—you can save the world."  
  
"And what if I think the world's not worth saving, huh?" she countered, dark eyes sharpening on him. "What if I think that even at its best the world still looks like this underneath? A cancer covered in pink candy shell coating to make it look all pretty?"  
  
"That's not what you think," he said quietly.  
  
"How do you know what I think?" she demanded, voice rising like an alarm.  
  
He tilted his head at her, tried to focus beyond the beauty of her. "I don't. But I know you're better than this, Faith. I believe in you."  
  
She snorted again and turned her head away, dark hair falling forward to cover her face. "You really believe that?" The way she asked it made it sound as if she thought he might be mentally deficient.  
  
"I do."  
  
She didn't look back up at him, just stared into whatever private world she lived in, and for a long moment there was only silence.  
  
"Wanna know something funny?" she asked, and her voice cracked, barely above a whisper. And then she did glance up at him, eyes skirting over his.  
  
"Sometimes you make me believe it, too."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
When I look back, I wish more than anything I had that one night to do over again. I don't know what I would have done differently, what I would have said, but I know there was _something_. Maybe I could have told her to ditch the whole Slayer thing. Could have thrown away my dream of redemption and run off with her to somewhere where the world could never touch us. Maybe we could have built something together that I'd only ever dreamed of. But I was younger then, too focused, too caught up in redeeming myself for my past offenses. I could have no sooner divested myself of my moral code than she could have told me she loved me.  
  
And she did love me. I know that now, too. I know a lot of things now that I didn't then.  
  
I wish I didn't.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The alley by the coffee shop was as ugly and tired and worn as the rest of this part of the city. The smell of garbage was nearly enough to gag on, and the furtive, maddened cries of the street people came from nearby, but all of it was lost on Angel. He was here, and he was with her, and they could defeat anything that happened to cross their path.  
  
"So this Slayer you knew," Faith asked as they ambled down the alley toward her apartment. "Whatever happened to her?"  
  
Reality came rushing back in an unwelcome flood, filling his mind with memories better left forgotten. He swallowed against the bitter taste in the back of his throat and it seemed to crack with the strain of words that didn't want to come.  
  
"She… died," he answered slowly.  
  
"How?"  
  
"Fighting."  
  
She stopped walking and stared at him, eyes luminous with the light of nearby street lamps. "Monsters?"  
  
"Yeah," he answered with some difficulty.  
  
"You… cared about her?"  
  
"I did," he admitted reluctantly. "But I never got the chance to really know her."  
  
"Because she died," Faith said harshly. "Like I'm going to die if I do this."  
  
"We all die, Faith."  
  
"_You_ don't!" she accused angrily. "You get to be young and beautiful and live forever. And what do I get? Some hand-me-down destiny I don't even want that's going to get me killed no matter how good I fight. And you _want_ me to do this?"  
  
He turned to her, eyes earnest and sincere. "I don't want you to die, Faith. If you died, I…" he broke off, not ready to even consider such a thing. "I would never let that happen," he said instead.  
  
"Yeah? You're gonna be my protector, huh?" Her laugh was empty and bitter.  
  
"You don't need me to protect you," he said, eyes intense upon hers. "But if you did… if you did, I would."  
  
She stared at him for a long moment, eyes filled with a strange mixture of trepidation, disbelief, and hope. Oh God, the hope he saw beneath that guarded glare. It brought his heart to life, made him believe it could beat again someday.  
  
What could he say to convince her?  
  
He was still trying to figure that out when something slammed into him hard from behind.  
  
There was a disorienting moment during which up and down became concepts that were interchangeable, and then there was a piercing pain through his left lung that missed his heart by scarcely an inch. He opened his mouth to voice his opinion on that—and thick blood rose up from his lung, filling his mouth.  
  
"Angel!" Faith screamed. She'd been just as distracted as he was, but she'd had a second or two more of awareness and the advantage of an outside angle. She froze for an instant as the wooden stake penetrated his back, and for a moment, Angel thought he heard genuine terror in her voice. Then she was in motion and as the world ran out like his blood onto the pavement, and she threw a hard right cross at the vampire who'd attacked him, spinning and following through with a boot to the head. The creature went down hard, and the last thing he saw before the world dissolved into nothingness was her lovely face above his, eyes round and horrified.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
He woke in a strange bed that smelled of musky perfume and sweet sweat. It took him a few seconds to get his bearings, and as he realized the strange pulling against his skin was only bandage tape, he recognized the scent.  
  
"You all right?" Faith asked, standing in the doorway of her bedroom, arms folded across her chest, the question itself sounding like a challenge. Such beautiful armor. If he hadn't known her so well, he might have thought she didn't care.  
  
"I think so." He reached down and fumbled for the bandage on his chest. The exit wound was small; a tiny, black round hole that had already begun to heal.  
  
She walked over slowly and took a look at the damage, arms still folded over her chest. Her full lips compressed to a line thinner than he would have guessed she could form, and she turned away.  
  
"I thought you were gonna die."  
  
"I'm still here," he said gently.  
  
She spun on him, eyes angry and desperate. "Nice talk. Telling me how you're gonna be my big, bad defender, and look at you. You almost died!"  
  
He couldn't refute that, and so he said nothing.  
  
"I can't take this Angel." Her hand trembled as she lifted it to her face. "I just can't--" She closed her eyes and hitched a breath, trying to regain control of herself. She turned away again, pressed her hands to her cheeks and ran them through her hair.   
  
"He was one of Kakistos' goons. I recognized him."  
  
Angel sat up, wincing slightly at the pain in his back. "You're sure?"  
  
She only nodded, her whole form sagging with despair. "He found me." Her voice cracked with sadness and years spent running from a nightmare that had caught her at last. She turned to him, her face a poem of desperation, vibrating with life and vitality; a passion that belonged to her alone. "What am I gonna do?"  
  
"You're going to have to face him," Angel said with finality.  
  
"No."  
  
"It's the only way you're going to get past this Faith. You've got to face him."  
  
She stood for a long moment in silence, painting a gorgeous, forlorn picture against the shabby backdrop of her room.  
  
"You'll come with me?" she asked, so quietly that he wasn't sure at first that she had spoken.  
  
"I will."  
  
She came to him then, put her hands upon his chest and eased him back on to the bed. Fingertips slid over the bare skin of his shoulders, trailing down to his belly with strokes that sent tingles spreading through his body. Slowly, ever so slowly, she crept on to the bed, straddling him as she ran her hands over his skin.  
  
"Faith--"  
  
"Shh," she cut him off, pressing a finger to his lips. "No talking now." She bent low, long hair brushing against his face, and he closed his eyes, arms reaching up to encircle her waist. Gentle lips met his, and he tasted coffee and fire and life itself as she breathed into him, warm body moving slowly against his in a tattoo of desire.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
I remember it like yesterday. Moment blending into moment, mouth burning, tongues teasing, tasting. God, she was so beautiful, so tender behind the roughness of her kisses. She was a jeweled chalice and her taste was sweet and spicy like thick honeyed mead, intoxicating me with every drop. She peeled off her clothes and put my hands against heaven, took me into her world and left me drowning, gasping for air and begging for release. Every moment, every kiss, every taste, burned into my mind forever.  
  
Such sweet desire, such innocence behind the knowing of her kisses. She knew what she was doing, every second, every touch, but she might as well have been a virgin for all that she had made love to someone like that.  I had told her how special she was, how divine and chosen and beautiful, but it was in that moment that she made me special. That moment when I finally believed. That moment when I knew true love at last.  
  
I should have known such things weren't meant for the likes of me.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
He blinked and opened his eyes to the distant slant of afternoon sunlight. Everything was marvelous, incredible. The world was revealed to him as if with new eyes, and he blinked again in amazement. Faded room, gray, all gray, peeling paint that revealed a sickening green beneath, and an ancient orange-red beneath that. The room was musty, sparsely furnished and bereft of all but the faintest traces of personality. The entire place smelled of the musk of sex, more faintly of perfume and the taint of unwashed bodies that littered the hallway just outside. And to him, it couldn't have looked or smelled more delicious. Had life ever been so good? Had he ever felt so free?  
  
Faith sat curled on the bed like a cat, ashtray perched on one knee, cigarette burning a long trail of ash down to the filter. Deep brown eyes, full pouty lips, a face that could have belonged to an angel or a junkie. Salvation or destruction wrapped in one tiny, beautiful package.  
  
"You okay?" she asked, cutting him a sidelong look. "You were thrashing around and moaning so much in your sleep last night I thought you might tear your wound open again."  
  
He lifted his hands and looked at them, marveling, then ran them down over his stomach, feeling the rough cotton of bandages scratch against his skin. He gave a surprised laugh and shook his head in wonder. "I feel… __great," he said, practically beaming as he smiled at her.  
  
"Yeah?" A faint smile, the ghost of hope. He wondered how many men she had gone to bed with and woken up without.  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So, I was thinking," she said without looking at him. "About this Slayer thing."  
  
"Yeah?" he asked, sitting up slowly.  
  
"Yeah." She glanced up at him uncertainly, trying as hard as she could to cover with her street smart toughness. But she was like the painted walls to him now; sheltered and trying vainly to be dull and safe on the outside, her layers pulled back to reveal the colors beneath. She tried to close her mind to him, but he knew her well enough by now to know how to squint and see it. The rest of her, however, was uncovered, naked and gorgeous and easily visible in the waning light.   
  
"I was thinking," she said slowly, carefully. "If I came back with you, we'd be like a team, right?"  
  
"Is that what you want?"  
  
She averted her eyes, hair falling forward and curtaining her face. "Does it matter what I want? I'm figuring, either way you'll turn out to be my partner in crime or the crazy stalker guy I thought you were when you first showed up. What I wanted never mattered much. Why should it now?"  
  
"Because it matters to me," he said solemnly.  
  
She glanced at him, perched on the edge of the moment with a half-drawn breath. And God, even disheveled and with bed hair, eyeliner smeared and lipstick faded, she was beautiful. The Goddess's of old would have envied her her full, sexy features, and yet she seemed so unaware of them.   
  
"Does it?" she asked, voice hesitant and huskily low despite the belligerent ring to it.  
  
"Faith… what happened last night, how I feel about you." He shook his head, gave a short, almost rueful laugh. "I can't tell you how grateful and happy I am."  
  
She stared at him for a long moment, mistrustful and frightened, then stubbed out her cigarette and set the ashtray aside, moving as if she were about to leave the bed.  
  
"Hey." He laid a hand on her arm, aware of her warmth, her heartbeat. "After all that, after last night, you're still going to shut me out?"  
  
She gave him a furtive backward glance and turned away again.  
  
"Hey," he whispered, sliding closer to her, taking her in his arms. "It's all right Faith. It's gonna be all right. We'll be together and everything will be okay."  
  
She shook in his arms like a tiny earthquake, body shivering against him. He could smell her blood, hear her heartbeat, feel her trepidation. He leaned forward, kissed the back of her neck, trailing upward with his tongue, smiling when she shuddered against him with a different emotion this time. He kissed the back of her ear and slowly made his way down her neck, placing small, perfect kisses over every inch along the way.  
  
"You really think so?" Her voice was soft, whispering as she leaned backward into him.  
  
He kissed the soft place where her shoulder joined her neck, nuzzled her there. "Oh, baby," he whispered and smiled, parting his lips. "I __know so."   
  
He turned his head and plunged his fangs deep into her vein.  
  
Thrilling with rapture at the taste of her blood, Angelus drained her dry.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The blood still tastes sweet, but not as sweet as when she was alive. Angelus' memories mock me, beckoning me down corridors of thought I will not travel. But still I stay here with her, cold hand in cold hand, pale flesh to pale flesh, each of us trying desperately to find a spark of life in the other. She was mine. I've never been anyone's.  
  
Cordelia and the others made sure I got my soul back, but it was way too late by then. All that time worrying about Kakistos, all the promises I made and the swearing that I would protect her… and she was cut from my life, from this mortal coil by my own hateful hand.   
  
She was lost to me, gone. I was sick with guilt, thick and dirty with it, and I groveled in the darkness of my heart, unfit to dream, deserving only death. And even then, her memory still haunted me, kept me alive. My heart still longed for her. I couldn't stay with the people who told me it wasn't my fault, who favored me with pitying stares and useless advice. I had to leave. Had to find her.  
  
Why? I think part of me wanted to kill her, to put everything to rest. But it will never rest, not so long as I live. One look at her, one look in those depthless brown eyes, and I knew I could never kill her, soulless monster or not. And so we spend our nights wrapped in fake passion like barbed wire links through our flesh, binding us together. Each word hurts, every move draws blood. And yet here I remain. It's my torture. My penance. My shameful desire. She hunts. She kills. She torments me with words like knife blades, flaying my soul with tales of what I did to her, slicing open my skin with lacquered fingernails and gleaming metal. There's never enough pain at the bottom to satisfy her, no matter how much I hurt.  
  
I am broken, and she is a dark and beautiful butterfly. Where once she burned with lust for life she now smolders with hatred. The songs she danced to have all gone, leaving her an empty vessel who is only truly alive when she's killing or fucking. She has a taste for torture and a love for young girls.  
  
Angelus would have loved her.  
  
I still love her.  
  
Whatever my life was, whatever my life could have been, it's hers now. I made her, and she owns me.  
  
Outside the window it's raining, and the world moves on while I stay trapped here in the confines of this tiny room, this secret place that is the home of my pain, surrounded by ghosts and the stale scent of hope. It's hardly large enough to hold my guilt, and it will never be large enough to hold my heart. But it's all I've got. I killed her, and when I killed her, I killed the passion that made her who she was. I killed what made her special. I reached inside that magnificent cage and squeezed the life from the bird that was its heart. The cage is still beautiful, but cold and empty now, echoing with only memories of what once was.  
  
The lights outside catch my attention, and I think of better days. Days when I was on fire with vision and hope for the future. Days when the city below was still the City of Angels and dreams could actually come true. Days when true love seemed possible. I touch the glass with shaking fingers and the water outside paints reflected trails down my face as I close my eyes.  
  
In my mind I see myself as a tree, branches grasping for the sky and sun with desperate, twisted lengths. An earthbound creature that can only stare at the horizon and pray, framed by clouds strewn across the sky, fleecy white entwined with blue, only a beautiful backdrop in this picture. The sun is ruby red, like the fire that burned in her heart, and I wish more than anything that I could touch it.  
  
But even if I never touched it, even if it burned me to a cinder with its unearthly crimson light, I would give anything for it to remain.  
  
Anything to have that vibrant girl back in my life, laughing, alive and breathing.  
  
There are some wounds that never heal.   
  
                                      
            ~From the diary of the vampire known as Angel, Los Angeles, February 19th 2002  
  
  
  
_


	3. Jewel Tones 3: Emerald

JEWEL TONES – EMERALD  
(Five Faiths That Never Were, Part 3)  
  
  
When you were five, it was a pony. When you were seven, it was a birthday party. When you were eleven it was breasts. When you were thirteen it was to not have breasts. When you were fifteen it was power. And when you were seventeen it was being Buffy.  
  
For as long as you can remember, you've always wanted something.  
  
You know, you think you know people. You spend every day with them, you fight with them, and listen to their stories about their pathetic little lives; how their boyfriend was the evil undead, how much their world sucks because they got gifted with more power than a normal person. You listen to them whine about how much everything sucks and all the while you're looking around wondering how you could get a piece of that life that sucks so bad, 'cause from this angle? That kind of sucking looks pretty damned good. The kind where your father beats you, where your mother drinks herself into oblivion, that kind of sucking pulls you right down into a black hole of hate that you try to bury at the bottom of your soul. But that kind of life, the kind of hate that it inspires, that stays with you. No matter how much you wish you could burn it out of you it stays like a brand, like a mark of Cain. And even if you manage to hide it it's always there, just waiting to be discovered, just waiting for its chance to betray you.  
  
So you listen to them whine, these people with easy, idyllic lives they don't even realize the value of, the kind you'd give your left arm to have, and you learn to hate them, too. You wonder how the hell they ever got so spoiled, so blind. And you start to wonder what it'd be like to be them. To have a piece of that for even just one second. And despite all the walls you've built up over the years, you try, at least a little, the best way you know how, to become part of that. But they don't even know you exist. They make you feel like less than you ever were. And that hatred starts to burn a hole right through you straight to hell.  
  
But still, you think you know people, these people especially. They're soft, and they're good, and they're heroes. All the things you'll never be. But you've got one up on them, because you can go places they'd never dare to dream. So you take it, take that one thing they don't have, the one thing they'll never have, and you run with it. You become the best at it. Hard where they're soft, evil where they're good, a villain to their hero. And after a while you start to believe that you're better, smarter, faster than them. They're trapped in a tiny world with no windows, but you, you've got vision kid, and you're gonna go far.  
  
'Til one of those soft heroic people you thought you knew so well shoves your own knife in your guts and leaves you for dead.  
  
That's the worst. You build up this idea in your head that you know things, that you're smarter, that you're way ahead of the game. And then one of these whiny dimwits comes out of nowhere and surprises you with a knife in the gut. Might as well have been a knife in the back. Not that you didn't knife _them_ in the back, 'cause technically you did. But hey, villains do stuff like that, and that's what you are.  
  
Correction. That's what you _were_.  
  
You think you know people… but it turns out the old cliché got it right: you never really know a person 'til you walk in their shoes.  
  
The grass is always greener, huh?  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
So you switch bodies, switch lives. You get a taste of what it's like to have family that loves you, friends that actually give a shit, a boyfriend who's gentle and kind, what it's like to be a hero. You play all the parts like an actress working for an emmy, trying to keep the mocking smile from your lips all the while. They're all still so pathetic. So stupid. The tiger is right in their midst and they don't even have enough sense to see it. Idiots, just like you always figured.  
  
Except that they're not.  
  
It takes you a little while, weaned as you are on fists and hatred, but you finally start to figure out; it's not that they're stupid. It's that they genuinely trust you. Of course they never question you. You're the hero, the one they look to when things go wrong. The one who always knows what to do. The one they love and adore. You finally get all the love and adoration you've been wishing for your whole life. And you hate them even more for it. Because it's not really for you, Oh no. It's for _her_.   
  
New life, new body, everything you always wanted, and guess what? You still hate yourself.  
  
You've never been a hero, never been a friend, never been loved. You've never been any of the things these people love about her. But for the first time ever, you _want_ to be.  
  
But you barely even get the chance. One good deed and then you're shoved back into your own body, back into your own crappy little criminal life. Only now you understand just how miserable you are.  
  
So what do you do? Keep going, try to make something better of the lousy hand you've been dealt and the even worse mess you've made of it? No. You plant a seed and nurture a death wish. Easier to give up than to try. And you've already fallen so far there's nowhere lower left to go, right?  
  
Wrong.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
South America. The grass may not be greener here, but the trees are. The emerald green of tropical plants is a welcome change, but it doesn't take long to figure out they're just a cover, a prettier mask to hide the decay. Thick, misty jungles filled with sick heat and poverty. The faces are different, and the smells unfamiliar, but it's not all that different from home, is it? If you could call the place you grew up in a 'home'.  
  
South America. Land of Freedom, Land of Cocaine, and you've got a heavy yen for both. Doesn't take long before you're snorting that extra bump to get you through the afternoon, the next hour, the next five minutes. A little bit of that stuff and you forget about life in Sunnydale, forget how it hurts, feel like you can fly. And then a little turns into a lot, and the sins start to pile up higher and higher. Slayer strength means you don't have to work for a living; you can just roll people for money. Bad for the soul, bad for your conscience, but hey, a little extra lump of snow makes it all look better in the morning. Some days it doesn't even seem like a bad way to live.  
  
And then he shows up. The guy you always wanted, the only one who ever seemed to care about _you_. Sure, he cares about her, too, but at least he knows that you exist.  You thought no one would ever find you here in this practically third world country, never figured any of them would care enough to come this far after you. But he does. Of course he does.  
  
You think you know people… You think they're not all that smart but at least they should have enough pride, enough sense to know when to leave you alone and let you sink to the bottom. Doesn't he know? Can't he see? Why can't he just let you waste away into oblivion? The heroes won. Isn't that the way it's supposed to be? But then, that's the trouble with people who think they're heroes; they've got delusions of grandeur. Think they're better than everyone else. That's why you've always hated them so much. You want to hate him too, but you've never been able to do that. Still can't. You look at him and you still see a little bit of hope; feel a spark kindle in your heart that could blossom into an inferno. And you hate him for inspiring you.   
  
It's a bad night; too much tequila, not enough cocaine and your nerves are jumping like crazy. He's angry, but he's solid, and he's talking sense, and you're starting to sober up and understand way more than you want to about your immediate future. He mentions her name. You bristle. You argue with him. Eventually it comes to blows. And it feels so good to be able to let go, doesn't it? So good to finally put your fists against something and give voice to the hatred in your broken heart. You never meant for it to go that far, but that hatred took on a life of its own, grew like a cancer while you weren't looking. Betrayed you one more time. You never meant for it to happen, but in the end that didn't change the dust on your hands or the tears on your face.  
  
He came to help you. Came to save you. Came to help you save yourself. The only person who understood. The only person left who cared about you at all… and you murdered him.  
  
You feel something break inside you, and then everything just goes numb. That black hole opens and starts devouring everything in sight, spins into a swirling vortex that eats every dream, every hope, every spark, growing until there's nothing left but an empty, mindless void behind your dark eyes.  
  
Cocaine isn't enough anymore. There's nothing that could fill the emptiness inside you, and after that night, you don't even try anymore. You think you know who you are, what you're destined for, and you decide there's no going back. Some sins can't be forgiven.  
  
Day blends into day, and soon you only care about time when it tells you you need another needle in your arm. You get slow, you get sloppy, and pretty soon you're too doped up to even be able to soften up average pedestrians for their money. But there are other ways. None of them pretty.  
  
Demons love you. They get off so hard on fucking a Slayer that sometimes you think they might just explode. Vampires though, they're the best. Not only do they view fucking you as something akin to a religious experience, but for a chance to get a taste of Slayer blood they'll pay twice as much. Business is good, and that black hole seems to dry up and fade away right along with your body. Pretty soon you're nothing but skin and bones, a walking skeleton who's got more of a chance of falling down dead than making it through another night.  
  
Slayers can O.D. Who knew?  
  
Laying there in that dirty gutter in a third world country where no one knows your name, you smile peacefully at last. There's no more want. No more pain.  
  
It wasn't supposed to be this way, kid.  
  
_You_ weren't supposed to be like this. You weren't meant for the harsher elements of the world. You weren't put together to withstand the little deaths, the moments that kill like inches, the tiny stabbing pains that chip away at people's hearts day after day. And you'd laugh if you knew it, but you were made for gentler things. For happier things; like unicorns and rainbows and true love. Nasty turn of fate being born to the family you were, even nastier getting picked for a Slayer. You built up the walls to protect yourself, hid away that innocence and love until you didn't know which was real and which was the construct. Tangled in confusion, wrapped in wanting. You bit down hard against the world and it was like biting into tin foil, a slow, metallic sting that poisoned your blood.   
  
Nothing turned out the way it was supposed to.   
  
But then, what does?   
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Whistler sighs and closes Faith's eyes. He sits and stares at her a moment longer, seeing roads demolished and paths not taken, and he wonders…  
  
He's still wondering as he rises and walks off into the humid night air.  
  
And he thinks maybe he always will.  
  
  



	4. Jewel Tones 4: Sapphire

JEWEL TONES – SAPPHIRE  
(Five Faiths That Never Were, Part 4)  
  
  
The sky is cool blue and calm, smooth, unmarred expanse stretching out as far as the eye can see, filled with dreams of another place, another time, and hope for the future that carries to the edge of the horizon. She always waits for the sun to rise, always stands atop this building like a dark silhouette cut from the fabric of night, still lingering like a wraith along the edges of dawn. One foot on the stone ledge, the other planted firmly against the concrete roof, hands held straight down at her sides, shoulders high as she stares up into the morning sun. She imagines she paints a tragic image in the minds of any who glimpse her there, and perhaps that is only because she imagines herself as such. One girl against all the world, head and shoulders held high beneath its pressing weight.  
  
But that's only her imagination, only dreaming, as she's given to do when she stands here like this beneath the dawning day and imagines that anything is possible. She's not the only girl in all the world—never has been. The world is filled with Slayers now, and she learned a long time ago that that being chosen didn't make her any more special than anyone else. She's gotten used to that. As used to it as she can get, anyway.  
  
She looks down at the streets below; gray and solemn, just struggling from the sleep of night as people stream from their homes, blinking with sleep filled eyes, and head off to their offices, their wives, their mistresses. All caught up in the doldrums of everyday life, slugging through another day, trying to find a reason to make it all worth while.   
  
She may not be special, but at least she's not like them. Not anymore.  
  
Angel has LA, Buffy has rebuilding the Council and finding Slayers. She has the Hellmouth. It isn't glamorous, maybe, but it gets the job done. It gives her something to live for, gives her something she hadn't been able to find in the cozy streets of Sunnydale or anywhere else on the planet.  
  
Cleveland doesn't have the charm of Sunnydale—and that's saying something—but it's hers.  
  
The sun climbs higher in the sky, and somewhere nearby, a church-bell tolls. With its ring, she tears her eyes from the promise of the horizon, and turns to start the short walk home.  
  
Another night, another slay. It's what she is built for, what she loves. Nothing thrills her like the hunt, nothing compares to the kill. She's happy. It's enough.  
  
Of course it is.  
  
She turns her back to the sun and descends down the stairwell from the roof, the warmth of the sun leaving her with a momentary feeling of longing.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
One beer in the morning. Just one. It's become her ritual after a night of slaying, and she keeps it, despite the memories that it brings. Or maybe because of them. She can't tell anymore.  
  
Robin used to say that she'd use any excuse to drink. But he'd always smile when he said it, teeth so white against the warm brown of his skin, gorgeous and dazzling and so filled with life. They'd make breakfast, him cooking sausage and scrambling eggs while she cracked a beer and the blender whirred along with one of her infamous power shake mixes, hip-hop music blaring in the background. He'd carry the food to the table—the same chipped, blue linoleum that she ran her hands over even now—and they'd sit and they'd eat. Sometimes they'd talk about the night before, work on fighting strategies. Sometimes they'd joke and laugh about their lives and how one day they'd find a way to make slaying pay the bills. And sometimes, if Faith was in a particularly good mood, they'd even discuss the future. Never anything very specific. Maybe how they were going to get a widescreen TV, or replace this 50's refugee of a dining room table. Never anything too deep or too meaningful, but always with the tacit agreement that they were together; that they _would be together. That neither of them—despite her reluctance to talk about her feelings—was going anywhere. And always, no matter what they did or what they talked about, or even if they fought, they'd scrape their plates and fall into bed and make love until they fell asleep. Almost like normal people.  
  
Robin. She stares at the mouth of her beer bottle and misses the sound of his voice, misses the sound of the whirring blender and the bustle of activity the kitchen once held. And she is still surprised to find that she didn't appreciate those moments more when she'd had them—her, who'd never had enough in life, who'd always wanted more than she ever dared to admit. She never realized how much they'd meant at the time, and she guesses life is just kind of like that. You get happy, you get content, and you begin to take for granted everything that you have, especially when you aren't trying to think too hard about how much you really do have. And it's no wonder, the way people are afraid to fall in love, the way they seek out the worst possible matches for themselves and sabotage every relationship they ever have. You let your guard down for just one second, let someone in, and then there's the very real possibility that they might go away and leave you with nothing but memories. Bitter memories. Memories that won't go, even when they should.  
  
She stares at the opaque brown bottle and it reminds her of the color of his eyes, so deep and rich. Blood smeared around their edges… all over her hands… all over the ground… so much of it—too much. And it's as clear as yesterday, as perfect as if she had recorded the moment to be watched over and over again on the tiny, dusty screen in their living room. The rattle of his breath, her fervent whispered words, and then the focusing of his eyes on a distant point she would never see. Deep brown and flecked with hazel, empty and flat. And still they were beautiful. Still she had stared into them with stupid hope and murmured prayers to a God she'd forgotten she didn't believe in anymore.   
  
After her tears had gone and the world returned with harsh reality, she had closed his eyes. She'd risen from his side and walked straight home, and she had never looked back.   
  
Who needed to look back when you had memories like this?  
  
She squeezes the neck of the bottle in her hand, and she barely notices the dull pain in her hand as it breaks. Blood drips down the dark glass, obscuring the label, and she lets it run, watching its trail, watching as it swallows everything that gives the bottle meaning, save its shape.  
  
She wishes it was as easy to swallow her memories.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
There is darkness in her dreams, always. It has always been there, always part of her, and nothing has changed now, even though she has. Nothing… save one thing. She doesn't fear the grim embrace of the reaper that seeks to claim her. She no longer shrinks from its cold reach, though she does still run. Runs straight into its waiting arms and begs for it to take her home.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
She wakes to a pounding on the door, and she sits bolt upright in bed, senses sharp and bright, for a moment like an animal in a cage as she stares at her surroundings and bristles, not knowing where she is. And then the thundering knock comes again and she breathes, recognizing the sparse, dark shapes around her, the scent of her own bed. Only her scent now; his dissipated months ago, though she waited for every last trace to be gone before she had burned the sheets. She sleeps on crisp white cotton now, her bed normal and unremarkable in a way that helps make the empty space next to her more bearable.  
  
She rises from the bed, clad in a tank top and underwear that would also be unremarkable were it not for the body that filled them. Unafraid now, she walks to the door and pulls the chain, opening it with an air of impatience.  
  
The landlord maybe, come to yell about the rent. Maybe the Mormons who persisted despite her best attempts to convince them she was a heathen, and she had a feeling they stopped by more for a glimpse of whatever she might be wearing than for any saving of her soul. Saints; yeah right. Animals, just like all the other men she'd ever known. Suckers for a glimpse of cleavage or belly skin, slavering dogs for the receding line of low-cut jeans.  
  
Animals all. Even this one, though he'd never let it show. Especially him. She supposes she isn't even surprised to see him. But she is surprised at the deep brown of his eyes, the emotion that lurks, unspoken in their depths. Not the same color or shade of emotion as Robin's, but close enough to give her pause.  
  
And then the moment passes, and she runs a tired hand through her unruly hair and sighs.  
  
"What are you doing here, Angel?"  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
He makes her get dressed, feeds her coffee and stands patiently to the side while she yells at him and tells him to get the hell out. She doesn't want him, doesn't need him. Doesn't need anyone. Doesn't know why she invited him in in the first place, except for that moment where his eyes had touched hers and made her feel something. He's always been able to do that to her. Reach right inside her and lay hold of her heart without even trying. Like he has a right. Like he understands. She hates him for it.  
  
The beer bottle still sits where she left it, blood still obscuring its identity though the wound on her hand has already begun to heal. And if he sees it, he says nothing. It sits on the table between them like a silent sentinel, its presence the space of years and words.   
  
They walk down bitterly cold streets in silence, her arms folded over her chest, face just as surly and brooding as his for once. The sky is dark, filled with a tapestry of velvet and tiny lights, and she hates it, too. In her mind it is still smooth and clear, the deep blue calm of a sapphire's depths. And she hates the memory. Hates it for making her search for something no one can ever give her. Hates it for filling her with the feeling of possibility, with the faint ghost of hope.  
  
"I'm so glad you dragged me out of bed to do this," she finally speaks up with a sneer. "I mean, why rest up to go out killing and saving the world when you could be walking down the insanely cold city streets next to a guy who makes statues look talkative?"  
  
He gives her a sideways brooding glance, the one he holds a patent on, then looks back to the sidewalk ahead of them. So like him to judge with a glance and never speak a word. Does he think she doesn't know what's going on inside his head?  
  
"Why don't you just say it, Angel?" she spits, glaring fiercely at him.  
  
"Say what?" he asks, voice so low and calm she could just punch him. How can he be so stoic, so fucking calm when she's so furious?  
  
She snorts derisively, a misty swirl of white on the cold air. "I know why you're here. Word finally got back to LA about what went down in Cleveland, and you took the time out of your glamorous schedule to waltz down here and sweep me up in your arms and offer your petty sympathy before swooshing back to LA in swirl of black trench coat, your heroic duty fulfilled. Well, spare me the pity party. I don't need it, and it's not going to put any plusses in the column for saving your soul."  
  
He stops walking, looks up at the tall city buildings as if momentarily stymied, and then slowly bows his head. "I'm sorry about what happened, Faith. I… tried calling you, but you never pick up the phone."  
  
"Oh." She laughs, a bitter sound that blends into the harsh background city noise all too easily. "You _called_. Well! Stop the presses! You really went out of your way there, didn't you? And me, being all ungrateful." She snorts again and rolls her eyes, working herself up into a righteous fury.  
  
"I'm sorry," he says again, and simply looks at her, and God she hates him for being able to look at her like that. For making her believe him when all she wants to do is lash out and hurt him, make him pay for the hurt she's suffered.  
  
She sighs and the anger drains from her in an instant, leaving her tired, washed out, worn and weary.  
  
"I know it hurts, Faith," he begins hesitantly, and a thousand stinging retorts leap to her lips, ready to be flung—but then, with his next words they are instantly forgotten, the ground seeming to rise up and swallow every thought she could produce. "But Robin's dead."  
  
"Fuck you!" she yells, voice raw and hoarse as emotion rises within the void and seizes her. "You don't know the first thing about it. You… you…" She trails off, burning insults vanishing into nothingness as the weight of emotion hits her, crushing her beneath the wave. She wraps her arms tight around herself and stares up at the night, remembering smooth blue, blameless sky, ignoring the way the moon doubles and triples through the blur of her eyes.   
  
"Robin's dead," he says again, and the words slice through her heart with poison truth. "And I'm sorry for that, Faith, I really am." He pauses, as if gathering his thoughts, or maybe the courage to say what comes next. Unable to speak, unable to think, she lifts her eyes to him, and he pins her with his stare, sadness and resolution in him like a leaden weight. "But you're not."  
  
She shakes her head and breathes out with derision, tearing her gaze from him. "So, what? Now you're gonna save _my_ soul?"  
  
"When I didn't hear from you, I wondered. I wanted… I wanted to see you."  
  
"Yeah," she says, still seething. "You were just too busy, right?"  
  
He licks his lips, drops his eyes, just a little boy, so ashamed of himself, and yet there is acid on his tongue as he replies. "Well, apocalypse and all, kind of takes precedence."  
  
"Look Angel, just save it, okay? You think I don't know this tap dance? You think I'm not used to this routine? I've seen it all my life. My dad spent his whole life crippled because of the war. You know what they did? Pat on the back, 'you were so brave' and oh, here's a medal, sorry about the leg." She laughs hollowly. "They don't even give you medals for slaying, but that's okay, because really, what's the point? You come down here with your condolences and concerns, but it doesn't change anything. Nothing changes." She tosses her head, dismisses him with a glance. "You've made your intervention, put in your shiny, heroic two cents and patted me on the back. You can go back to LA with a clear conscience."  
  
"Faith… you think I've never been through this? That I don't know what it's like?" he asks, and his words cut into her like tiny knives, bleeding her soul. He holds out his hand, naming off every sin with another finger. "When I first got my soul. When I left Buffy in Sunnydale. When Buffy died. I know better than most people what it means to be cut off from everyone. What it means to hold it all in and carry it with you."  
  
"Yeah, you're a real expert, Angel," she shoots back at him, voice dripping venom. "You figure that gives you the right to come here and lecture me?"  
  
"No," he says, so quick and explosive that she thinks it probably got away from him before he could stop it. He pauses, takes a moment to compose himself; a rustling of trench coat, a shifting of posture. "No," he says again, more firmly this time. "Faith, I know how hard it is. But you're alive, and there are people that need you. Something else I learned over the years, is that when you carry around as much as we do, you _need_ other people. You hold yourself away from them for too long and you forget what you're fighting for. Forget that you're even alive. You lose that, and how long before you end up in your apartment, broken beer bottle in front of you, glass laying there, looking like temptation? How long before you lose hope and think it's easier to give it all up?"  
  
"Looks like you got through it all okay," she retorts, voice snide, fury in her heart. "Where the fuck do you get off coming to me with this shit when you're the poster boy for repression?"  
  
"Faith…" he trails off, and she notices how his breath makes no mist against the crisp air. No heat, no life. What must it be like to go through life, dead but still walking, still trying, still hoping, knowing that you're damned before you even start?   
  
"I know it hurts. But you're alive, and there are people that need you."  
  
She sniffs and tosses back her hair, light breeze catching it in a sudden rush of cold. And she can't let him see, can't let him see any of it. How close to the truth of the matter he is, how close to tears she is. She swallows hard against the lump in her throat and forces the words out. "So I was right the first time. You came to save my soul." She pauses, grips her elbows in her hands and pulls down hard against herself. "Angel… listen. The world doesn't need me that bad, okay? There's hundreds of Slayers now, maybe more. I'm not so special. I don't think anyone's gonna notice if I go missing—__if that even happened."  
  
"Only one other that's as experienced as you," he contradicts, immediately.  
  
"So they'll learn," she says harshly, tipping her head to the side and raising her shoulders with impatience.  
  
He says nothing, just stands there and stares at her in that way that makes her want to scream. After a moment, she turns, starts to walk away. There's nothing here left to say, after all. She'd thought maybe there was. Despite all her belligerence, all her anger, she'd really thought maybe he had some kind of answer tucked up his sleeve; something to make everything better, something to make it all right again. She should know better than that by now.  
  
"Come with me," he pleads, voice low, verging on that breaking note that always got straight to her heart. And despite herself, she stops, cold winter air so clean, everything so bright and sharp, within and without.   
  
"There's someone I want you to meet."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The girl is tiny, gaunt even by today's thin standards. Pale skin, neck too long, face too angular, too much eyeliner, not enough love. She doesn't know the girl from Adam, but the fear in her eyes; that, Faith recognizes well enough.  
  
"So what? You brought me here for the gothic Disney club?" she asks Angel in a heated whisper. She rolls her eyes and begins to turn away, and Angel grabs her, turns her about by her elbow.  
  
"She needs help."  
  
"Yeah? So help her!"  
  
"Angel Investigations does a lot of things, Faith," he says with a low, bitter laugh. "But it doesn't train Slayers."  
  
She stops, reassess the situation. "She's a Slayer?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"So why didn't you send her to Buffy?"  
  
"Gee," he says, and she can hear the searing sarcasm. "Because Buffy's in Europe, maybe?"  
  
"So what do you want me to do?" she asks, heavy sarcasm returning and raised by arched brows and challenging shoulders.  
  
"Talk to her."  
  
"I don't want to."  
  
"Just talk to her," he pleads, and he's looking at her with those eyes again.  
  
She raises her shoulders even higher, shrugs. "Fine." It can't hurt right? Nothing changes, nothing makes a difference. And just maybe it'll get Angel off her back and out of her life again.  
  
"Faith." He grabs her by the elbow again, turns her toward his glowering brow. "Her name is Marie."  
  
"Okay," she replies testily, annoyed by his persistence. "Not much with the gratitude, are you?" she mutters as she shrugs him off, takes a step nearer to the barstool. The girl must be old enough to get in here at least—or at least, she appears to be. And Faith doubts Angel would bring her to a 'den of sin' like this if there were any real danger. Then again, at this hour, there isn't much open besides restaurants and bars.  
  
And still he persists at her side as she steps forward.  
  
"Marie, this is Faith," he says, stepping in front of her.  
  
She elbows him out of the way and cuts him a look. "Just talk, right?" she asks.  
  
He nods, and she turns to the girl with some semblance of a smile. "Hey Marie."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Sad, sob story. Parents cut down by creatures of the night, poor girl, untrained, unable to do anything to help, barely able to save herself. Marie's in tears by the time its all over, eyeliner running down her cheeks like some dime store hooker on a weekend bender, and Faith finds herself uncomfortable with the intensity of the girl's emotion. And Angel, he just stands unhelpfully to the side, head bowed and far enough away that he might as well not even be part of this, though he's clearly listening to every word that's being said.  
  
She searches for words and at last clears her throat, resigning herself to the fact that she's never been good at this and she's probably never going to be. Heart like soldier, Robin always said in those times when they would argue; heart like a stone. And though his words had burned she'd always taken their sting with a swelling of pride, because he was right, damn it. She __was hard, she __was made of stone; it was what kept her alive.  
  
"That's a tough break, kid. Really tough." She shifts, tries not to see the girls weeping eyes. "But when you're a Slayer? You see a lot of that. You lose a lot of people you love, and time just marches on and the bodies keep piling up until at last you fall on top of the heap."  
  
"Faith," Angel interjects, his voice heated, eyes angry.  
  
"What? I'm telling her the truth, Angel. Ask Buffy about what a happy ride it's been, she'll tell you all about it." She looks back to the girl. "I'm sorry, kid, but being a Slayer isn't a fairy tale, it's not some kind of magical answer. I don't know what Angel told you, but I'm not going to pull a rabbit out of my ass and make your life all hunky-dory." She lifts one shoulder in a half shrug, then rises, turning to go.  
  
"I… I don't want you to do that," Marie says, and her voice wavers, but there's a strength in it now that Faith hadn't heard earlier. "I… I __know you can't do that." She turns back around and looks at the girl, interest piqued despite herself, and wide, round eyes stare back at her from a horror of make-up. "I just want to __do something."  
  
"Yeah," Faith says with a snort. "That's generally what lands you on top of the pile. Look, Marie." She looks the girl dead in the eye, hoping the message will get through. "I can't help you. Get Angel here to help you. That's what he does," she says with a pointed glare at the vampire.  
  
"That's what I'm _doing_," he replies.  
  
She shakes her head and starts to walk away again.  
  
"What about you?" the girl asks, her voice gaining another notch of bravery, and Faith stops dead at the ring of challenge it holds. "What about the people who helped you?"  
  
She spins back around and paces the girl down. "Yeah. Helped me so that I could watch everyone else around me die—or better yet—watch __them die. You think that's good? You think that's the right thing to do? Last man standing and nothing to show for it. Hooray for the heroes, right?"  
  
"At least you're still alive," the girl says, matching the rancor in Faith's tone, and almost against her will, Faith feels her appraisal of the girl rise a notch. "You can still do something. You can still fight, maybe save the world, maybe get revenge. Maybe those people that helped you died because they thought what you were doing was worth it."  
  
She advances on the girl with raging eyes and burning heart. "Listen Mary Sue, you don't know the first thing about--"  
  
Angel steps between them with a grace his large frame belies, his voice a low warning, an urgent plea. "Faith."  
  
She stops, lowers her head and shakes it, then brings trembling fingers up to her mouth. "No," she says, fingers tightening into a fist and creeping back down to her side. "No. You're right. I'm not gonna do this." She takes a deep, steadying breath and turns and walks from the bar.  
  
The cold night air is a welcome relief, and it freezes the heat in her veins, the explosion of emotion in her heart. She breathes deep and watches her breath turn to mist on the frosty air, and just before her mind can turn to lighter things, before she can wonder if winter will come early this year, she hears a shuffling step behind her.  
  
So predictable.  
  
She spins on her heel and turns to face him.  
  
"Where'd you find her, Angel? She's good."  
  
He smiles, oh so faintly, and she can see a measure of the respect the girl has earned in her come to life in his expression.  
  
"Why do you think I ended up bringing her here?"  
  
She nods slowly at that, and then the moment fades and the thin string she's been holding herself together with all night begins to unravel. "Angel… I… I understand. But I…" She raises her eyes to him, and despite all her will they are filled with hated tears. "I just can't do this. Not right now."  
  
His mouth curls in a disappointed simile of a smile, and with the avoidance of his eyes, he nods and lets her go.  
  
"Call me," he says quietly, and it's so LA that she can't help but smile through her tears.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Time passes, and all manner of demons and vampires fall before her. Every morning she waits for the sun, standing atop the building come snow or rain, and waits for the golden light to break through and touch her face. Times passes, and the morning comes and she drinks her beer and she revisits the memories, but it is different now. She remembers with that same, deep sadness, yes, but the edges of his smile are touched with hope now, etched in clear blue and wreathed in the clouds of possibility.  
  
He still talks to her sometimes. Not clothed in the apparition of insanity like a ghost before her eyes, but his strong voice ringing in the back of her mind like the church bell at daybreak. He is no longer bloody and ravaged, no longer the wraith of memory that haunts her every waking hour. He rests inside her now, at peace, and she can hear his voice more clearly with every passing day. She trusts him to guide her, and at some point the melody of his tone recedes, and she can only hear the voice of herself speaking like a narrator in her head, telling her right from wrong.   
  
Grief slowly recedes, leaving in its wake the faint aftertaste, a constant that will always be with her, but it is muted now, it's shade blended and lost beneath the colors of life. She often thinks of Buffy, herself, Marie, all the other young Slayers who fought against the First. She thinks most often of Buffy and all her sister Slayer has lost, how she bore it all alone for so long and held it inside… but she also thinks of the people who surrounded her, who still surround her, who love and believe in her. That was always the difference between the two of them; Buffy had people who cared, who helped her because they wanted to. Who believed in what she did. They had a choice that Slayers did not, and still they chose to help, to place themselves in danger despite the very real threat of death. Giles, Willow, Xander, even Anya had done that. Robin had done that. And much as it hurt her to lose the one person who had believed in her, she cannot choose not to see how valiant a gift it was. Sure, she could have always been alone, and then she wouldn't have had to suffer like this. Her life could have been easier, maybe… but she can't help thinking that her life would have been emptier without him. She might not have a choice but to fight, her life might not be filled with joy all the time, but she's alive, and as long as she's here, she might as well make it mean something. She's spent too long isolated inside these four walls, too long behind the barrier of her sorrow. It's time to make a choice of her own.  
  
The realizations are slow, and long, bitter winter gives way to spring. Choice takes its own time in coming, stopping to pick flowers and sight see along the way. But when it finally comes, it comes without further question, without a second thought.  
  
It's a morning like any other morning in Cleveland, and the sky is gray with the promise of rain, not unlike most days, as she picks up the phone. He would want this, she knows. More than that, _she_ wants this. She hasn't let him go—doesn't think she will ever let him go—but she knows she has to go forward. She's ready. As ready as she'll ever be.  
  
The other end of the line rings once, twice—and then a voice picks up.  
  
"Angel. Hey… Yeah, I'm…good," she answers, running a hand through her hair with a melancholy smile.  
  
"No, I'm okay, really."  
  
"Yeah, I've been thinking…"  
  
"No, nothing's wrong. In fact, I just killed a Dagobeast the other day and…"  
  
"I'm thinking maybe it's time for me to put a Cleveland group together."  
  
She listens to the voice on the other end and smiles._

  
  



	5. Jewel Tones 5: Onyx

JEWEL TONES – ONYX  
(Five Faiths That Never Were, Part 5)  
  
  
When the first sporadic deaths occurred in New York, no one was paying any attention. A localized incident; acidic gas, no problem, the government said. But when more people began to die in smaller towns outside the city, the whole country sat up and took notice. The media blamed the government and the government swore its innocence, and by the time it spread to DC, Atlanta and LA, the entire country was in an uproar—but it was already way too late.  
  
I guess we thought we were going to be safe. After all, we'd lived so long outside the rest of the world, fighting creatures most people didn't even know existed. We hadn't lived in a purely human world for a very long time, and I guess, somehow, we thought we'd be outside its rules. That our little group of Cleveland Hellmouth Slayerettes would live forever.   
  
After all, we'd already lived through so much.   
  
Then the first marks appeared on Xander, and we realized that all the fights, all our love, our friendships and trials, none of it meant anything. All the apocalyptic battles we'd survived, all the good we'd done, all our heroics meant nothing to this silent, uncaring killer. It was coming for us just the same as everyone else. We had the ability to turn back the forces of Hell itself, to conjure and create from nothing, and we were still all going to die.   
  
We were lost.  
  
In the short time the world had left to live, people took to calling it Creeping Death. I don't know why. It's more like a racehorse once it gets hold of you. No one knew where it came from, or why—though considering the symptoms, blaming the government seemed fair—and pretty soon, there wasn't anybody left to ask. It all happened so fast.  
  
We'd barely begun to deal with Xander's illness when it entered the final stages, and by then, Giles and Wood were already sick, too. I have blurred memories of holding Dawn's hand, my fingers curled in her hair, feeling the fever radiate from her in sickening waves. I remember Wood screaming for his mother when the end came, remember Giles laying silent, like a pale tattooed wraith, his bloodshot eyes become flat, empty mirrors. You'd think, with something like that, when the deterioration process is so ugly and slow, that when death finally came it would be a relief. But it never was. Every time one of them died it only got harder to take.   
  
Willow held on the longest. For a while we thought she might actually make it. When she was gone there was only me and Buffy. We cried, and we grieved and we watched pretty much the rest of the world drop like flies around us until we were convinced that our Slayer powers were all that was keeping the disease at bay.  
  
But then, a few weeks after Willow's death, Buffy came up sick. Buffy, my Slayer sister, the one I'd thought would stick around and help me stay sane through all this. She was the hardest. I stayed with her and held her until the end, ashamed that all I felt beyond sadness was the terror that I was going to be next.   
  
For the next couple of weeks I was pretty much catatonic. I lived in this kind of numb state of shock where I woke up every morning and expected to see little black circles of death spotting my skin, like the reaper coming to claim me one painful inch at a time. But every morning, against all odds and common sense, I came up clean. Eventually I figured I must be immune; that lucky one percent of the human population that just also happened to be a Slayer.   
  
By that time there was no one else left alive in Cleveland.  
  
I didn't give a whole lot of thought to where I was going 'til I got to LA and found Angel. His face was drawn, pale, etched with more lines than I could ever remember seeing. He'd never smiled much before, but he smiled less than ever now, and his eyes were haunted with the ghosts of the recently dead. He was ecstatic to see me, but at that point I think he was so lonely he'd have been happy to see a puppy.  
  
The disease doesn't affect vampires, of course. Nothing in them to feed on, or kill, I guess. It also doesn't affect certain types of animals. The human race, though? Damned near history.  
  
Sometimes I think about how pissed Spike would be. All that noble self-sacrifice and then humanity goes and offs itself anyway.  
  
What a fucking joke.  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
The breeze from the Pacific Ocean coasts over my skin, salty scent mingling with the stench of ash burning on the beach below. Of course some people survived. Not many, but some. Most of them have come out here to the coast like we have, where the air is fresher, cleaner, far away from the cities choked with the bodies of the dead.   
  
This night marks three months that Angel and I've been here, and I'm still not used to this. I swallow against the lump in my throat and realize that given the situation, I suppose that's just as well.  
  
I squint my eyes into the distance and try to pretend that it's just normal people down there around the bonfires. Young people staying up late to drink and make out and do the drunken shuffle along to the latest Top 40 hit on their little Panasonic radios. Nothing out of the ordinary here at all.  
  
Sometimes, when the scent of burning flesh relents a little, I can almost believe it.  
  
Later, Angel comes up the cliff to join me like he usually does; a pale, handsome vision still clothed in dramatic black. The disease may have killed off a lot of things, but Angel's fashion sense hasn't suffered a bit.  
  
We sit for a while and watch the people below, neither of us really talking to the other. We do this so often now that it's almost like a ritual. And we don't really need to talk, anyway, because there's usually enough comfort for each of us in just knowing that the other is there. That we're not alone. He could go anywhere in the world he wanted, but he came here with me to this alien place that has somehow become humanity's new world order. This place where people burn the bodies of the countless dead night and day in an attempt to begin rebuilding their lives.  
  
After a while, he tilts his head thoughtfully at the beach and speaks.  
  
"You know, when this is done, they're going to need someone to look out for them. Protect them from other things."  
  
I can tell he's trying to make me feel better, trying to look toward the future where we'll have something better to do than sit around and smell burning bodies all night long. Normally I'd find it touching. For such a bad ass he's really a great big sweetie. But tonight it only pisses me off.  
  
"It's going to have to be you," I say, rolling up the sleeve of my shirt and showing him the cluster of black circles gathered by my wrist.  
  
After all, for me, there's not going to be a future.  
  
His face goes taut and he looks away, mouth pressing down into a fine, pale line. "Dammit, Faith." I watch him struggle with his emotions and I try to feel sorry for him, I really do. But I feel too sorry for me to be much good at it.  
  
"You know, I'd say that it's really no big," I laugh bitterly. "Except that it is." I shake my head and stare at the interlocking circles that blur and fade together in the dim firelight from afar. With my eyes full of tears they look like little skulls. "I'm not ready to die." Of course I'm not. Neither was Buffy. Or Giles. Or Willow. Or Xander. Memories of them vomiting and choking, black circles cutting patterns into their skin like barbed wire flare to life in the eye of my mind.   
  
Why now? It isn't fair. It's been months since the Creeping Death hit, and _now_ I get it? Stroke of luck? Twist of fate? Virus mutation? I don't know. All I know for sure is that I'm dying, and I feel tiny, scared and alone.  
  
All these months, watching everyone die, living with the pain and the guilt of survival… I'd really believed that I was going to live. I'd thought I had time.  
  
"I'm tired, Angel. My body hurts, my bones ache, and I've got this fever creeping up the back of my throat like the sun after a night full of drinking tequila. But I don't want to die. I'm not supposed to die."  
  
He puts his arm around me and shelters me from the sea breeze, and we sit like that in silence for a long time. Down below, the surf hits the sand, tides as inexorable and changeless as the disease inside my body that's eating me alive. I sit and stare and lean into Angel, taking what cold comfort I can from him. I think of a little girl in pants two sizes too big for her, remember the sunshine on my face as I swung high on my rickety swing set, trying so hard to touch the sky, trying to fly. I remember, and I mourn for the woman I dreamed of but never became; the woman I might've gotten to be some day, given a chance.  
  
"I'm going to miss you," he says quietly, and his voice trembles.  
  
I press my lips together and fight for control as I look up at him through bitter tears.   
  
"Yeah. Me too."  
  
*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *  
  
Another twenty-four hours have passed, here on the ragged edge of the world. Tonight Angel is gone, and I sit crouched on the sun beaten rocks alone, black circles snaking up my arm like damning tattoo's all the way up to my shoulder joint. There's a burning that rises from my gut all the way to my mouth, and I'm always thirsty now, no matter how much water I drink.  
  
I know Angel would have stayed with me until the end. I wouldn't even have had to ask. But in the end I begged him to leave. If he had stayed I never would have found the strength to do what needs to be done.  
  
I watched Buffy and all the others die slowly, painfully and stark raving mad.  
  
I'm not going out like that.  
  
I cock the gun in my hand and stare at it thoughtfully. The salty taste of Angel's tears still lingers on my lips where he kissed me goodbye, and it's a good taste; an _alive_ taste. The kind you want to carry with you at a moment like this because it reminds you that you were full of life and love and breathed and tasted and laughed somewhere in there between all the pain.  
  
I close my eyes and imagine his face, remembering the way he looked at me in happier times. I remember all of them that way—Buffy smiling, Dawn laughing, Giles cleaning his glasses, Xander fumbling over his words like a big goof, Willow's nervous little smile—and pretty soon I can't tell the salt spray of the ocean from the tears running down my face.  
  
My hand seems to lift the gun of its own accord. From far off, I hear the pounding of the surf, the quiet murmur of voices. Somewhere in the distance, a seagull screams. And you know, I thought I might wait and pull the trigger at dawn and all that poetic, trite shit, but fuck it.  
  
Night was always more my time, anyway.  
  



End file.
